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| Beaulieu at Newport: Photo courtesy of Robert King |
Beaulieu is an elegant villa from the very earliest days of Newport's golden era.
During its early years it was rented to the famous Mrs. Potter Palmer of Chicago.
Here is a little story of her accounts about unusual happenings while she stayed there.
Mrs. Potter Palmer, [in 1899] it is said always felt a shiver as she went
through the big dark front hall, after the guests have gone. Every door opening
out of it had to be locked at night, as well as every door that she passed on
the way up to her sleeping room
For noises were heard at night light the rustle of silken shirts, as if the
unbidden guest of the past were passing in and out the rooms and halls and
opening and closing doors.
The climax came one night soon after the Grant wedding, when Butler White was
putting out the lights on the lower floor.
In half darkness, he saw an apparition, in white ball costume, with a Spanish
mantilla thrown over her heard, as if she had stepped from a heated ball rooms
out upon the lawn and been suddenly chilled the night air and mist flowing in
from the sea.
The figure in white glided in through the closed doors, swept past the
terrified butler, with a silken rustle and passed up the broad staircase. The
backward glance given as she ascended the stairs, while the mantilla fell from
her heard, revealed a face of a dark Spanish beauty. That much Butler White
saw, then fell prostrated on the hall floor.
Two footmen, hearing his fall, rushed up from the basement and picked up the
butler. They said he looked like a dead man as he lay there with arms wide
outstretched, hands clenched, and white, set face upturned with wide open, but
apparently sightless eyes staring at the ceiling.
The next morning, when the butler had fully recovered his senses, he declared
that nothing would induce him to stay another day in the house. He did stay the
rest of the season. But ever after that when he was in the front hall two
footman were always with him, either day or night, one stationed behind each of
the two tall bay trees that flanked the entrance to the staircase.
(The Marlboro Democrat – 9-1-1904 - Bennettsville, S.C.
Historic story courtesy of Robert King
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